Robert Schuller is Evil II: The Double-Down

November 2, 2010

Yesterday we talked about ‘possibility’ and ‘positivity’ apostle Robert Schuller and the ironic economic mess he has found himself and his organization in. They are 43 million dollars in debt and have been forced to file for chapter eleven bankruptcy.

Schuller’s response in a public plea to his churchcongregation audience?

“I need more help from you,” Schuller said, according to the Orange County Register. “If you are a tither, become a double-tither. If you are not a tither, become a tither. This ministry has earned your trust. This ministry has earned your help.”

“This ministry has earned your trust.”

Now, maybe it’s just me, but when the leader of any organization, government, or business stands up and statement a is that the company is 43 million dollars in debt, it does not logically proceed from there that they have ‘earned’ my trust.

In fact the very opposite is true: they have mismanaged and spent my trust!

So you’re telling me that my tithes have been used in a manner that indicates poor stewardship, and your response to that is to ask me to give you twice as much money? Really? Double-tithing? Does the phrase double-tithing automatically make anyone else here a little irked or is it just me?

Armed security guards will be on hand at 36 unemployment offices around Indiana in what state officials said is a step to improve safety and make branch security more consistent.

Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods.

Schuller may not have noticed but America is in a little bit of a recession. Might not be the time to be asking people to be ‘double-tithers’. California is not doing so great either. There are some pretty bad situations all around that obscene structure named the Crystal Cathedral where a group of people could actually be the church. If Robert had stood up and talked about how they were tightening their belts everywhere to try and keep their street programs going, how they were trying to get clothes to some poor kids, or how they were trying to get some medicine into the hands of the poor, I wouldn’t have as big an issue. But that’s not what they’re doing. They are putting on a severely dated, pretentious, and misguided pageant every week where a terribly false bill of goods is being sold, and people are begging and pleading for donations so that the “gospel” can go forth in the form of lame music and bad sermons.

So I’m going to make my own public plea this morning to the members of the Crystal Cathedral. “I need more help from you. If you are a tither, stop!. If you are considering tithing or double-tithing draw a circle on your desk and repeatedly hit you head in it until some sense returns.. This ministry has not earned your trust. This ministry has earned your skepticism.”

Before I got laid off last year I worked for the Salvation Army. A couple of years ago an old guy I used to work with a lot said the last time he saw the job market get this bad was when he was growing up during the Depression. Now of course I’m biased because I worked with the Salvation Army for almost a decade but if an old guy who lived through the Depression tells me things are so bad now that the Depression is the only other time in his life he remembers things being this bad that’s going to trump anything any Schuller says. I’d say giving to the Salvation Army or Union Gospel Mission (full disclosure already noted) makes more sense than giving to Schuller’s ministry now.